ACCESSION NUMBER:267509
FILE ID:ECO202
DATE:02/16/93
1ITLE:HOUSE PASSES SIMPLE RENEWAL OF EXPORT-CONTROL LAW (02/16/93)
TEXT:*93021602.ECO  ECEXPOLD  EXP CONTROLS  /te
HOUSE PASSES SIMPLE RENEWAL OF EXPORT-CONTROL LAW

(Resolution condemning whaling approved)  (430)
By Bruce Odessey
USIA Staff Writer
Washington -- The House of Representatives has passed a bill renewing the
Commerce Department's authority to control exports through June 30, 1994,
authority that expired nearly 2-1/2 years ago.

By a February 16 vote of 330-54, the House passed a straight extension of
the expired law without any of the controversial proposed changes that for
years have blocked passage of more ambitious legislation.

Senate passage is still required before the bill can be submitted for
President Clinton's signature.

Since the law, the Export Administration Act (EAA), expired September 30,
1990, the Bush and Clinton administrations have maintained the U.S. system
of export controls under another law, the International Emergency Economic
Powers Act (IEEPA).

Representative Sam Gejdenson, sponsor of the new legislation, said that
legal challenges to IEEPA have made the Commerce Department's authority
vulnerable.

If any legal challenge to IEEPA succeeded before Congress passed EAA
extension, he said, the United States would have no guaranteed way of
preventing exports to terrorist countries of high technology or missile
components or goods used to produce biological, chemical and nuclear
weapons.

Other members added that IEEPA lacked many powers contained in EAA,
including authority for search warrants and for protection of confidential
business information.

Once Congress passed a simple EAA extension, Gejdenson said, then it could
begin the much bigger task of rewriting the law, emphasizing decontrol to
make U.S. business more internationally competitive.

In other business February 16, the House passed 382-0 a non-binding
resolution aimed especially at Norway and Japan reaffirming U.S. opposition
to resumption of commercial whaling.

Norway has already announced it intends to resume in 1993 commercial
harvesting of minke whales in defiance of a 10-year International Whaling
Commission (IWC) moratorium that began in 1986.

Representative Gerry Studds, chairman of the House Merchant Marine and
Fisheries Committee and principal sponsor of the resolution, said he wanted
the House to pass a clear, strong resolution on whaling to counter public
relations campaigns by the governments of Norway and Japan to influence
U.S. public opinion against the moratorium.

The Clinton administration will have to decide whether to impose trade
sanctions against Norway under a provision of U.S. fishing law called the
Pelly amendment if Norway proceeds to violate the IWC moratorium.

According to Representative Benjamin Gilman, the United States is conducting
no formal negotiations with Norway over the dispute, but the two countries'
IWC commissioners have been holding informal discussions.

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